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Strange that the actual airbnb guests are doing this. I have been a host as well as guest and as a guest, I just made sure that all the trash was put in trashcans before I left. It is up to the host to clean the apt and place the trash outside. It might be the cleaning company, assuming airbnb hires someone else to do the cleaning. The host might not even know this. Have you tried contacting your neighbor?

I have stayed at numerous airbnb places where the guests were required to put the trash outside in trash bins , and if it was a week long rental, put the trash bins out for collection on a specified day. They may also have people renting the house to throw a party, so there could be a huge amount of trash for a short stay.

I live about a block away, and with no trash on the sidewalk, we’re still having this issue. The rats were displaced from the multiple large construction projects, including the new Marriott complex at L and 9th Streets, where they’re now digging down several levels to create underground parking. Additionally, 12th Street and Massachusetts had a huge problem, especially across Mass by the elementary school, so they’ve done some rat abatement there which may be pushing them north. I think you should contact the neighbor and let them know about the open trash containers, but the rat issue in the neighborhood is coming from multiple causes.

We live elsewhere in Shaw and are also having a HUGE problem with rats. We’re all diligent about our trash but the rats have literally chewed holes in the cans. They are ruthless and plentiful. At night they can be seen clearly walking on the sidewalk, even when approached within a couple feet. Stupid rats!

So I’m normally all about just speaking directly with a human, but one wrench that might get thrown in is if the owners are actually rarely there. How would you go about contacting them if you don’t have a phone number/email?

To find out who the members in the LLC are, run a search on the webpage below. At the very least, you should be able to find the contact info for the initial member/owner who created the LLC. (P.S. It’s annoying that you have to create an account to use the DCRA site, and the site’s functionality is straight out of 1992, but you’re likely to find something helpful.)

Curious if OP has actually *seen* the AirBNB guests doing this or is just presuming (people really like to blame AirBNB for lots of things not caused by it/hosts/guests). I pretty much exclusively use AirBNB when I travel and have never taken trash to the curb. The closest to this I was ever asked to do was taking any bottles to the downstairs bodega for recycling/cash in when I was in Montreal. Normally you just make sure all the trash is in the right bins inside the house/apt, and the host takes care of the rest.

This definitely seems more like a talk to your neighbor about how they handle their trash thing.

I have had a lot of issues with a neighbor “host.” Most Airbnb’s are not legal. You can contact Ms. Tibbs with DC government [email protected] or 202-442-8676 to investigate unlicensed Airbnb or 877-672-2174 to report rats.

I would suggest contacting Airbnb (http://www.airbnb.com/neighbors has a form you can fill out that raises concerns both to the owner and Airbnb). If you want to go nuclear, you can check to see if they have a BBL (unlikely), and if they don’t, DCRA can investigate.

We’ve been dealing with a nuisance Airbnb next door to our house, and the owner is absent and non-responsive, so we’ve filed several complaints with Airbnb and are now getting DCRA involved. DCRA is supposedly investigating the property.

One solution would to be to purchase several dozen snakes to help keep the neighborhood safe. I’d get a few more than you think you need in case some get hit in traffic. You can buy snakes online “at absolute rock-bottom prices” here:

Pretty much all the cans in my alley have holes chewed through them. I hadn’t seen this until the past year or so. Have the city’s rats evolved? It seems unless they fix that problem (metal cans or stronger bins) this rat problem will only get worse

Unfortunately, D.C. residents receiving city trash pickup are stuck for the time being with the “Toter” brand plastic bins that not only can be chewed through, but also can’t be closed securely. (There’s no latch.)
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I always wonder who it was in DPW who got kickbacks for selecting a brand/model of trash bin that expressly fails the single most important directive from the Department of Health’s rat abatement team — i.e., that trash should be put in bins with “tightly fitting lids.”

On the lids not being sufficiently secure: After an incident (not long after I moved into my house) where I opened the kid of my trash bin and a rat jumped out, bounced off my arm, and ran into the alley, I keep bricks on top of my trash and recycling bins at all times except when they’re out in the alley for pickup.

I live pretty far north and near RCP. I’ve kept a brick on top for years to keep other animals out. I’ve always thought the Totters were preferred because of the dumpster-style auto open and close once they were put on the lift. I couldn’t imagine all the broken latches or misplaced lids with other designs.

“I’ve always thought the Totters were preferred because of the dumpster-style auto open and close once they were put on the lift.”
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Hmm, that’s a good point… although in my neighborhood, the garbage men never put the trash bins on the truck’s lift thing; they just lift the bags out by hand. Which means you can’t put in any small bags, because they won’t deign to reach down to the bottom to get them out.

Why wait on the city? I’ve placed my trash in metal cans under the porch for over a decade until the night before/morning of collection. No rat sightings in my back yard since shortly after doing so. The supercan also doesn’t have the rat nibble, unlike others in the alley.

Yeah, but unfortunately that requires residents to be proactive and to purchase cans at their own expense, and a lot of people simply don’t care or can’t be bothered.
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I was stunned when a guy in my neighborhood seemed to think that rats were the inevitable result of having shrubs (!), and didn’t seem to see the connection between readily available trash and a thriving rat population.

I suspect this is a cleaning company and not the guests (unless the host has specifically asked guests to put their own trash out, which would be unusual). I also suspect that the cleaning people don’t know just how much of a problem they are creating because they are only there during the day. If they knew, I would hope that they would be asking the host to get more cans.

I live on the 1200 block of O Street and I will agree with what some others have said: the rats in this area are out of control. DC’s rat abatement folks came over to check it out and they couldn’t really do much because we didn’t have any actual rat holes on our property for them to fill with poison. We just have the rats visiting but they seem to be nesting elsewhere.

My rat abatement idea: develop rat food/poison that wouldn’t kill them (or be harmful to dogs/cats/sidewalklickers) but would sterilize them. Sprinkle it in all the alleys in the city. BAM. No more rat babies. I should have payed more attention in chemistry.

Thanks for the link!
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Reading the article now. I get a kick out of this bit:
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“In 2010, Chicago officials went ‘natural’: figuring a natural predator might track and kill rats, they released 60 coyotes wearing radio collars on to the city streets.”

I live on this block between 11th and 12th on M. I don’t know if all the pile up is from Airbnb guests, but it’s a mess. They can just buy one or two new bins so there is no overflowing. i may just buy them one or two!

I live on 15th and Columbia and we too have major rat issues. Apparently the city used to be proactive with rodent control but not so much anymore. I suggest calling the DC dept of health and submitting a request. They were very responsive when I called and came out he next day to treat the area. We have seen a decrease in rodent activity.